From automatic inventory and purchase reporting to easy ordering, an online company store comes with multiple benefits. One of the most essential, especially for companies with multiple locations, is brand control. Brand control ensures the countless hours you spent establishing your brand guidelines will be upheld, delivering a consistent brand experience from all locations across the board and preventing the all-too-common brand abuse.
How to Reduce Brand Abuse
Brand abuse comes in many forms, and one of the most common can originate from right inside your own company. Companies with more than one location are at extreme risk of brand abuse, especially when different people need to source merchandise.
Individuals can end up using a variety of different vendors, grabbing for the most convenient logo file, and ultimately creating products for which neither the artwork nor the item has been officially approved.
An online company store keeps your branded merchandise consistent and authorized across the board. A central dashboard gives authorized users an easy way to add only approved items sporting your official logo, colors and other approved elements.
Specific brand control advantages that come from an online company store include:
Using only trusted vendors: Locations in a rush to fill an order may think they’re doing the right thing by turning to the most readily available vendor, whether that vendor has been properly vetted or not. An online company store reduces the need to rely on multiple vendors across different locations.
Maintaining brand colors, logo: Your company spent extensive time and resources crafting a brand color scheme and logo. An online company store ensures only corporate-approved artwork and other branding elements will be used on everything you produce.
Ensuring approval on new products: Without the central control of an online company store, new product approvals can take extensive time, or be added to the product lineup without any approval at all. Change that by managing all new product approvals quickly and conveniently from storefront dashboard.
Get the Right Products to the Right Employees
Different products may be available to different employees, but attempting to control which individuals actually receive those products can be tough without a reliable means of tracking the stock and delivery of various items. An online company store allows each employee or location to order the specific amount and type of merchandise required. This provides a way to:
Control who can order products: Employees can be segmented by department, location or other criteria, with authorizations set that limits the products they can order.
Control what products are ordered: Items like employee uniforms or welcome kits can be dangerous in the wrong hands. Set controls to ensure only the exact amount is available to the required parties.
See Also: Eliminate Brand Abuse with an Online Company Store
Keep Your Brand Strong beyond Apparel
Brand abuse can extend to items beyond apparel, with variations of your brand colors or logo appearing on your printed materials. Creating a section of your online shop dedicated to printed materials can help you maintain brand integrity with:
Sales and marketing materials: From pricing sheets to brochures, postcards to fliers, having your sales and marketing materials in a central location available to authorized employees maintains brand consistency while making your sales and marketing teams’ lives easier.
Tradeshow materials: Posters, displays and other tradeshow materials can likewise boast official, high-quality brand elements with on-demand ordering for employee convenience.
With an online company store, you no longer have to wonder and worry about your brand’s integrity. Every location will enjoy a convenient, controlled way to obtain and deliver only approved branded merchandise and materials, while you’ll enjoy ultimate peace of mind. For more details on the features and benefits of a Coggins online company shop, download a copy of our spec sheet.
